Labor shortage leaves union workers feeling more emboldened

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — When negotiations failed to produce a new contract at a Volvo plant in Virginia this spring, its 2,900 workers went on strike.

The company soon dangled what looked like a tempting offer — at least to the United Auto Workers local leaders who recommended it to their members: Pay raises. Signing bonuses. Lower-priced health care.

Yet the workers overwhelmingly rejected the proposal. And then a second one, too. Finally, they approved a third offer that provided even higher raises, plus lump-sum bonuses.

For the union, it was a breakthrough that wouldn't likely have happened as recently as last year. That was before the pandemic spawned a worker shortage that's left some of America’s long-beleaguered union members feeling more confident this Labor Day than they have in years.

With Help Wanted signs at factories and businesses spreading across the nation, in manufacturing and in service industries, union workers like those at the Volvo site are seizing the opportunity to try to recover some of the bargaining power — and financial security — they feel they lost in recent decades as unions shrank in size and influence.

“We were extremely emboldened by the labor shortage,” said Travis Wells, a forklift driver at the Volvo plant in Dublin, Virginia, near Roanoke. “The cost of recruiting and training a new workforce would’ve cost Volvo 10 times what a good contract would have.”

In addition to 12% pay raises over the six-year contract, the Volvo deal provided other sweeteners: Many of the union workers will be phased out of an unpopular two-tier pay scale that had left less-senior workers with much lower wages than longer-tenured employees. All current workers will now earn the top hourly wage of $30.92 after six years. And by holding out as long as they...